Title: Annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Identifier: annualreportofbu1018881889smit (find matches)
Year: 1880 (1880s)
Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of Ethnology
Subjects: Ethnology; Indians
Publisher: Washington : G. P. O.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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PACIFIC COAST TATTOO. 397 As is wfill known, the black pigments, when picked into the human skin, become rather bluish, which tint, when beneath the yellowish tinge of the Indian's cuticle, appears of an olive or sometimes a greenish-blue shade. The colors, inmicdiatcly after being tattooed upon the skin, retain more or less of the bhu' hhuk shade; but by absorption of the pigment and the persistence of the coloring matter of the pigmentary membrane the greenish tint soon appears, becoming gradually less con- spicuous as time progresses, so that in some of the oldest tattooed Indians the designs are greatly weakened in coloration. c^i^
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 517.—Haida tattoo, sculpin ami dragon fly. Upon the bodies of some persons examined the results of ulceration are conspicuous. This destruction of tissue is the result of inflamma- tion caused by the tattooing and the introduction under the skiu of so great a quantity of irritating foreign matter that, instead of designs in color, there are distinct, sharply deiined figures in white or nearly white cicatrices, the pigmentary membrane having been totally destroyed by the ulceration.

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